A Grand Don't Come for Free

Atlantic / Vice; 2004

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Whether it's a reaction against the MP3's pending usurpation of the album format or just simple coincidence, the concept record is enjoying a small comeback at the moment. But perhaps careful not to echo the supposed sins of bloat and misbegotten puffery that characterized the psychedelic and progressive rock eras, many of the artists responsible for the best recent concept records-- Sufjan Stevens' Greetings from Michigan, the Magnetic Fields' i, and The Fiery Furnaces' upcoming Blueberry Boat-- share a willful intimacy that borders on the quaint.

On A Grand Don't Come for Free-- the follow-up to his internationally acclaimed debut, Original Pirate Material-- Mike Skinner audaciously weaves an 11-track narrative over an often bare and inert musical backdrop, one that acts more like a film score than the foundation of a pop record. The plot is pretty bare-bones: boy loses money, boy meets girl, boy loses girl. But by focusing as much on the minutiae of life as on its grand gestures, the impact of Skinner's album-- essentially a musical update of "The Parable of the Lost Coin" peppered with Seinfeld's quotidian anxiety and, eventually, a philosophical examination of Skinner's lifestyle and personal relationships-- transcends its seemingly simple tale.

Cynics and/or detractors could sneer that Skinner's sonics are too slight and that his flow is too rigid-- particularly when compared to "other" hip-hop artists-- without being entirely off the mark: Skinner's awkward, sometimes offbeat delivery is even more charmingly/frustratingly clumsy here than it was on Original Pirate Material, and the record's beats and melodies are subservient to its story. But while those perceived weaknesses may make A Grand a non-starter for those who disliked Skinner's debut, trying to place his square peg into the round holes of either hip-hop or grime/eski seems a mistake. After all, this is a record that starts with its protagonist trying to return a DVD and ends with him chastising himself for improperly washing his jeans. In between, he spends time at an Ibiza burger stand, smokes spliffs on his girlfriend's couch, grumbles about a broken TV, sorts out his epilepsy pills, philosophizes about the nature of friendship, and grumbles about the failures of mobile technology. Clearly, Skinner is on a singular place on the pop landscape.

Echoing his ability to compensate for his own musical weaknesses, Skinner manages to turn his character's personal shortcomings into A Grand's strengths: Communication failures, both technological and human, allow Skinner to deftly examine body language and small gestures. His character's lack of prospects and disconnect with work and family highlight the importance of friendship (especially, perhaps, to young urban adults). His crippling self-doubt (at the record's start, any hiccup in his day is proof that he should just spend it in bed) and need for approval from others makes his solipsistic epiphany all the more heart-wrenching. The album's ultimate contradiction may be that while Skinner's life is seemingly driftless, his understandable attempt to tether it to another human being-- any other human being-- often causes him more harm than good.

Considering that Skinner showed such a gift for post-laddish humor on Original Pirate Material, the most surprising aspect of A Grand may be that, here, he's at his best when he's at his most sentimental. His love and/or relationship songs overflow with melancholy and the inability to express emotion at crucial moments. In short, they're pretty truthful and sometimes painfully familiar. Along with the drug haze of "Blinded by the Lights", A Grand's best moments are a pair of tracks that bookend the story's main boy/girl relationship: The first-date track "Could Well Be In" ("I looked at my watch and realized right then that for three hours we been in conversation/ Before she put her phone down, she switched to silent and we carried on chatting for more than that again") and the dissolution of that same relationship on "Dry Your Eyes", a tongue-tied, heart-in-throat ballet of non-verbal expression.

That Skinner is able to coax so much from a cliché-heavy, 50-minute examination of solipsism and self-pity is a tribute to his ability to reflect and illuminate life's detail. By stressing his paranoia and doubts ("It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them," he blubbers as he loses a domestic dispute), he deftly avoids the melodrama of today's network reality TV. Instead, his approach echoes the faux reality of The Office (which shares a non-ending ending with A Grand) and the me-first neediness of its "star" David Brent (whose final-episode self-actualization echoes Skinner's). Like The Office, Skinner's anthropological humanism typically focuses on either the mundane or disappointing-- and, let's face it, life is most often one or the other--- but he does so with such endearing intimacy and bare honesty that it's easy to give yourself over to the album's narrative on first listen and, perhaps just as importantly, to want to revisit it over and over again.